Is your Travel Marketing Adjusting to Falling Gas Prices?

Gas prices are finally dropping, locally we’ve seen about a $.20 decrease in the last few weeks.  Nationally the consumer confidence that gas prices will continue to drop is at a 10-week high.  Decreasing gas prices mean more travelers willing to take that road trip, either for the long weekend or the week-long family vacation.  Are you taking advantage and marketing to your drive-to market?

Segmentation of your marketing strategy is a proven method for making potential guests feel like they’re being spoken to directly, as opposed to lumped in with the other 10,000 people you’re marketing week-long, fly-in deals around.

Drive to marketing can generally yield shorter, but much more frequent stays.  Keep in mind that someone who can come spend  4 to 5 days at least two to three times a year is going to make your business more money than that one family that came for 6 or 7 nights.  They’re generally easier to market to, and tend to be louder brand advocates in your social networks.

Getting ready for some drive-to marketing:

1. Put together an editorial calendar that features events and happenings that will attract your drive to market
2. Figure out who they are.  Use Google Analytics and Google Maps to figure out the radius of your drive to market, generally a 4-hour or less drive in every direction.
3. Figure out the towns and cities that are within that radius and make a note of those towns and/or zip codes
4. Find those towns and zip codes in your Analytics, which ones make you the most money?
5. Use your list of towns and zip codes to do a few things to get ready to market:

• • Pull those towns and/or zip codes out of your email marketing list into a new “drive to” group
  • Find the major online and offline publications that exist within your drive to market
  • Create Landing Pages that offer deals to those major drive-to markets.  Make them personalized to your visitor’s location like Domain.com/Raleigh or Domain.com/VirginaBeach

Now you can start marketing

1. List your major cities and see about buying advertising in major publications (online and offline) that will drive visitors to your location-specific landing pages
2. Run Paid Advertising campaigns in Adwords, AdCenter, and Facebook that target your drive-to radius with keywords like “Long Weekend vacations” and such.
3. Send out email blasts to each major city area that offers special drive-to deals and lands users on their local landing page
4. Use your local Facebook network to “get the word out”
5. CONSIDER using a local deal site like LivingSocial or Groupon.  There are A LOT of downfalls to this tactic, so do your homework carefully.